Rental market · Boise City, ID · Incorporated city

Boise City, ID: average rent, home values, and rental yield

Mountain · Population 237,242

DatasetCity Market Score, model balanced4,812 of 5,233 tracked U.S. markets rankedgenerated 2026-10-06Latest source releases: Zillow ZHVI/ZORI 2026-08 · Census ACS 5-yr 2024 · Census PEP 2025 · Census BPS 2025 · BLS LAUS 2025 · Redfin 2026-05 · FBI CDE 2025How this is built
B55.3
#1,222 of 4,812 ranked markets
Overall Score 55.3 · stronger than 75% of ranked markets
Confidence 100/100 · every scored factor measured directly, none imputed
Grade B: the biggest single drag is Cash Flow, 34.2 of 100 at 35% of the score, which is 63% of the distance to a perfect 100. See the arithmetic

Why this market does or does not qualify

Overall City Market Score rank #1,222 of 4,812. It does not enter the Buy & Hold shortlist under the baseline screen.

Does not meet screen
Investor-entry estimate$398,565
Modeled rent$1,885/mo
20% down · base cash flow−$1,030/mo
25% down · rent stress to base−$1,040/mo to −$890/mo
Hold Coverage · 20% / 25%0.52 / 0.55
Conditional price ceiling · 25%$222,518
Required rent at entry estimate$3,377/mo
Limiting requirementDoes not pass the existing category-quality gate

Price × rent decision grid · 25% down

Change the two inputs that usually decide the deal. Green cells clear the three financial requirements before the separate quality and data gates.

Monthly cash flow / Hold Coverage10% below entry$358,709Entry estimate$398,56510% above entry$438,422
10% higher rent$2,074/mo−$510/moHC 0.71 · does not clear−$750/moHC 0.62 · does not clear−$980/moHC 0.55 · does not clear
Modeled rent$1,885/mo−$660/moHC 0.63 · does not clear−$890/moHC 0.55 · does not clear−$1,130/moHC 0.48 · does not clear
10% lower rent$1,697/mo−$800/moHC 0.55 · does not clear−$1,040/moHC 0.48 · does not clear−$1,270/moHC 0.42 · does not clear

Expense waterfall · base case

Monthly, rounded to $10. NOI excludes CapEx and debt service.

  1. Scheduled rent+$1,890/mo
  2. Vacancy allowance−$90/mo
  3. Management−$140/mo
  4. Maintenance−$90/mo
  5. Property tax−$200/mo
  6. Insurance allowance−$170/mo
  7. NOI+$1,190/mo
  8. CapEx reserve−$90/mo
  9. Debt service−$1,990/mo
  10. Cash flow−$890/mo
Base−$890/mo · HC 0.55Rent stress−$1,040/mo · rent −10%Insurance-expense stress−$1,230/mo · allowance 1.5%

Two supported strengths
Growth 80/100 and Stability 63/100.

Weakest measured signal
Cash Flow is the weakest category at 34/100.

Primary evidenced risk: price-to-income affordability is the weakest measured factor (19th national percentile). Data caveat: price is Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI (5th–35th percentile); rent is ZORI asking rent and is not bedroom- or property-matched. Insurance is a 0.5% annual allowance, not a quote.

Scenario buy-hold-v1-2026-09-19: 7% fixed financing for 30 years; 20% and 25% down; 5% vacancy; 8% management on collected rent; 5% maintenance and 5% CapEx on scheduled rent; measured local property tax; 3% closing costs. Qualification also requires positive cash flow, Hold Coverage at least 1.10, nonnegative cash flow after 10% lower rent, and the existing quality and data gates.

Property verification checklist
  • Confirm achievable rent with bedroom-matched comps, current listings, and any existing lease.
  • Use the parcel’s actual tax bill and reassessment rules.
  • Obtain a landlord insurance quote, including wind, flood, or named-storm coverage where relevant.
  • Inspect roof, structure, mechanicals, deferred maintenance, and immediate capital needs.
  • Verify utilities, HOA, licensing, inspection, registration, and local rental rules.
  • Replace the modeled loan with a current lender quote, points, closing costs, and reserve requirements.
Boise City, ID
Photo: Jyoni Shuler · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia

Why this grade

Overall 55.3 is a weighted geometric mean of the three category scores. Because they are multiplied rather than averaged, their distances from a perfect 100 combine as an exact identity, and each category's share of that distance is the arithmetic below, not an estimate. Cash Flow carries 63% of it, which is what makes it the binding constraint on this grade.

Cash Flow · 35% weight
34.2 / 100
63% of the shortfall
Growth · 35% weight
79.5 / 100
14% of the shortfall
Stability · 30% weight
63.1 / 100
23% of the shortfall

Inside Cash Flow, the shortfall splits over the factors the model scored here, exactly, in proportion to their published weights. The largest component is expense-adjusted yield (weight 22 of the category's 35, 43rd national percentile, 54% of the category's own shortfall); next is price to income (weight 13 of the category's 35, 19th national percentile, 46% of the category's own shortfall).

What this is not. It is not a claim that a different value on any one factor would produce a different score or a different grade. Every factor is scored as a national percentile and the grade is a percentile cut against the other 4,812 ranked markets, so this market's position moves only relative to all of them, never on its own. All 13 factors were measured for this market, so no category is carrying a gap.

How Boise City ranks nationally

Each row places Boise City against all 4,812 ranked U.S. markets. The marker is this city; the centre tick is the national median, and the bar spans from that median to the marker, so its length is how far from the middle of the country this market sits and the side it falls on is the direction. Further right is more favorable to an investor: inverted measures (crime, vacancy, price-to-income) are already flipped so higher always means better here.

Overall Scorethe flagship rank
55.375th percentile
Cash Flowyield & affordability
3430th percentile
Growthpopulation, jobs, income
8095th percentile
Stabilitycrime, vacancy, unemployment
6379th percentile
Expense-adjusted yield2.5% net of costs
4343rd percentile
Affordabilityprice-to-income 6.0×
19more affordable than 19%
Violent crime24 / 100k
41safer than 41%
Rental vacancy3.5% vacant
71tighter than 71%
Population growth0.5%/yr (capped)
5858th percentile
Job growth2.9%/yr (capped)
9595th percentile

What a deal looks like here

A market-level buy-box for Boise City, built from this market's own numbers: the investor-entry price, its rent, and local carrying costs. The market grade is a quality screen; the deal verdict below is this financing scenario only. An illustrative scenario, not a listing.

Target buy price
$398,565
Expected rent
$1,885 /mo
Rent-to-price
0.47%
Cap rate
3.6%
Cash-on-cash
-9.6% at 25% dn
NOI-based DSCR
0.60
Hold Coverage
0.55 after CapEx reserve

Does not meet screen. At 25% down, named scenarios span −$1,040 to −$890/mo after reserves (10% lower-rent stress to base case). This range is not a confidence interval.

Buy target = Zillow Bottom-Tier ZHVI (5th–35th percentile) $398,565; typical home value $503,852. Rent = Zillow ZORI typical asking rent. Assumptions: 25% down, 7% / 30-yr, 5% vacancy, 8% management on collected rent, 5% maintenance, 5% CapEx reserve excluded from NOI and subtracted from cash flow, 0.5% insurance, 0.59% property tax. Illustrative market-level scenario: not a listing, appraisal, recommendation, or underwriting decision. As of 2026-07-10.

Market Negotiation Leverage

Strong seller leverage (14th percentile among 6,196 cities with Redfin coverage)

Equal-weight composite of three Redfin signals’ national percentiles (days on market 11, months of supply 1.0, sale-to-list 100.4%), direction-adjusted so a higher percentile always means more room for a buyer to negotiate. This is a cross-sectional snapshot against every other tracked city today, not a seasonal or historical baseline for this specific city (no multi-year time series is committed for this data). Not a prediction of what any specific seller will accept. Source: Redfin Data Center. See how this is calculated.

Measured market data

Measured observations for Boise City, shown as context beside the market score (none of it feeds the score), and the model weights are unchanged. These are different measurements from the Census figures in the factor table: the ACS median value is what owners report in a 5-year survey, while ZHVI is a monthly index of typical value; ACS median gross rent is what sitting tenants pay including utilities, while ZORI indexes asking rent on newly listed units. Neither corrects the other. Monthly series, revised in recent months, observed 2026-07, not live.

23 measured Zillow figurestypical value $507,649 · asking rent $1,857/mo · measured gross yield 4.39% · observed 2026-07Show table
Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI, mid tier)$507,649
ZHVI bottom tier (5th–35th pct)$402,573
ZHVI top tier (65th–95th pct)$753,739
ZHVI, single-family only$512,360
Zillow asking-rent index (ZORI)$1,857/mo
Measured gross yield (ZORI × 12 ÷ ZHVI)4.39%
Market heat index74
Median days to pending8
Share of listings with a price cut28.0%
Median sale-to-list ratio100.0%
For-sale inventory845
New listings408
Median list price$569,300
Median sale price$547,500
Measured 3-yr value growth2.06%/yr
Measured 5-yr value growth0.29%/yr
Measured 3-yr rent growth3.72%/yr
Price–rent divergence (value − rent growth)-1.66%/yr
ZHVI, 1-bedroom$336,296
ZHVI, 2-bedroom$395,341
ZHVI, 3-bedroom$478,614
ZHVI, 4-bedroom$614,680
ZHVI, 5-bedroom$762,701

Source: Zillow Economic Research public research data, observation month 2026-07. Zillow is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, Compounding Estates.

Typical home value $503,852 Median rent $1,885/mo Population 237,242 Region Mountain

Price & rent history

Home value $133,253 → $503,852 (2001-01–2026-08) · Asking rent $882 → $1,885 (2015-01–2026-08)

Source: Zillow ZHVI (home value) and ZORI (asking rent) - monthly resolution for the last ~10 years (since 2016-09), quarterly before that. Home value uses the left axis, rent the right; toggle either series, change the range, hover to read any point. Gaps in the source series are left as gaps - never interpolated.

ZIP markets in Boise City

14 Census ZIP Codes (ZCTAs) officially overlap Boise City by land area · 12 data-eligible for subscores. Overlap is Census land-area share, not a population or address share. Each ZIP Code's overall Rental Investor ZIP Score, grade and canonical national rank are shown below (the two component signals, affordability and rental market, are separate percentiles). There is no city-scoped ZIP rank: city overlap isn't a ranking universe, so only the national rank is shown. These ZIP rankings sit in the ZIP universe only, never mixed with, and not directly comparable to, Boise City's city ranking. Vintage: the Key metric column below is Census ACS 2020–2024 (5-year), the same survey release as the figures used above for Boise City itself; a city and a ZIP Code are different geographies, so the same measure can still show a different number at each level.

12 of 14 overlapping ZIP Code areas, scoredgrade, overall Rental Investor ZIP Score and national rank for each, on a separate model from this page's city scoreShow table
ZIP CodeOverallgrade · natl rankTier · overlapAffordabilitysignal · natl rankRental marketsignal · natl rankKey metric
83702Boise City A 65#1,573 nat RankedPrimary 33#16,583 of 20,132 · bottom 18% 66#3,209 of 20,132 · top 16% 1.9%Survey yield
83704Boise City A 76#41 nat RankedPrimary 60#5,550 of 20,132 · top 28% 69#2,295 of 20,132 · top 11% 4.6%Survey yield
83705Boise City A 69#595 nat RankedPrimary 48#10,469 of 20,132 · bottom 48% 64#3,750 of 20,132 · top 19% 3.5%Survey yield
83712Boise City A 67#1,098 nat RankedPrimary 35#15,712 of 20,132 · bottom 22% 75#855 of 20,132 · top 4% 2.0%Survey yield
83713Boise City A 73#212 nat RankedPrimary 62#4,941 of 20,132 · top 25% 56#6,856 of 20,132 · top 34% 4.7%Survey yield
83720Boise City — LimitedPrimary — — —
83725Boise City — LimitedPrimary — — —
83706Boise City A 73#181 nat RankedPrimary 41#13,661 of 20,132 · bottom 32% 61#5,126 of 20,132 · top 25% 3.2%Survey yield
83709Boise City A 74#84 nat RankedPrimary 61#5,208 of 20,132 · top 26% 45#12,133 of 20,132 · bottom 40% 4.6%Survey yield
83703Boise City A 67#1,187 nat RankedPrimary 45#11,890 of 20,132 · bottom 41% 71#1,780 of 20,132 · top 9% 3.4%Survey yield
83716Robie Creek A 69#733 nat Ranked32% overlap 51#9,083 of 20,132 · top 45% 47#11,087 of 20,132 · bottom 45% 4.0%Survey yield
83714Garden City A 71#365 nat Ranked25% overlap 49#9,927 of 20,132 · top 49% 58#6,206 of 20,132 · top 31% 3.6%Survey yield
View all 14 ZIP markets in Boise City →

The honest read

Boise City scores 55/100 overall (grade B): 34 for Cash Flow, 80 for Growth, and 63 for Stability, each a 0–100 score built from the factors in that category. The scenario above shows what a representative investor-entry purchase pencils out to at today's rates. Everything we can measure is in the table below, with its source.

Every factor, shown

The Overall score blends three category scores built from thirteen measured factors: Cash Flow (35%), Growth (35%), and Stability (30%). The table shows every factor; the tag on each percentile marks which category a scored factor feeds. Untagged factors are shown for context but not scored. Every percentile also carries the band it falls in - top 10%, top quartile, above or below the national median, bottom quartile, bottom 10% - so a bare ordinal still reads as a position; the band restates that percentile and adds nothing to it. Every value carries its source and as-of date. How the score works.

FactorValueNational percentileSource · as-ofWhat it means
Expense-adjusted yield2.5%Below median43rd percentile · Cash FlowZillow ZORI/ZHVI · 2026-08-31Annual rent divided by price, net of a modeled vacancy, tax, capex, and management allowance: the core of the Cash Flow category and what the score is actually computed from. The unadjusted gross yield is shown elsewhere on this page.
Price to income6.0xBottom quartile19th percentile · Cash FlowZillow + ACS income · 2026-08-31Home price over local median income. Lower is cheaper relative to what people earn. Part of the Cash Flow category.
Population growth0.5%/yrAbove median58th percentile · GrowthCensus PEP · Census PEP 2020→2025 (vintage 2025) + Census PEP 2015→2025 (vintages 2019+2025)Census population trend for the place, capped at 4.5%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate): the heaviest factor in the Growth category.
Job growth2.9%/yrTop 10%95th percentile · GrowthBLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2019→2025 (pre-COVID anchor; 2025 is an 11-month average) + BLS LAUS county annual 2015→2025County employment trend, capped at 4.0%/yr before scoring (diminishing returns above that rate). A Growth-category factor.
Income growth6.9%/yrTop quartile80th percentile · GrowthCensus ACS · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024Local median-income trend. A Growth-category factor.
Rent growth5.9%/yrTop 10%96th percentile · GrowthZillow ZORI · 3yr + 10yr to 2026-08-31A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year rent trend (the model's own weighting). A Growth-category factor.
Home-value growth5.9%/yrTop quartile82nd percentile · GrowthZillow ZHVI · 3yr + 10yr to 2026-08-31A 40/60 blend of 3-year and 10-year price trend (the model's own weighting). A small Growth-category factor.
Unemployment3.3%Top quartile85th percentile · StabilityBLS LAUS (county) · BLS LAUS county annual 2025 (11-month average)County unemployment rate. Lower is steadier, a Stability-category factor.
Rental vacancy3.5%Above median71st percentile · StabilityCensus ACS B25004 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024Share of rentals empty. Lower means more pricing power. A Stability-category factor.
Property tax rate0.6%Top quartile84th percentile · StabilityCensus ACS B25103/B25077 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024Median tax over median value. A direct drag on cash flow, scored in the Stability category as carrying-cost burden.
Months of supply1.0 moTop 10%97th percentile · StabilityRedfin Data Center · 2026-05-01Listings over sales pace. Under about 4 is a seller market, over 6 a buyer market. A Stability-category factor.
Days on market11 daysTop 10%93rd percentileRedfin Data Center · 2026-05-01How fast homes sell. Lower means more liquidity and an easier exit. Shown for context, not scored.
Sale-to-list ratio100.4%Above median73rd percentileRedfin Data Center · 2026-05-01Sale price over asking. Above 100% means homes clear over ask. Shown for context, not scored.
Net domestic migration+15.6/1kTop 10%94th percentileCensus PEP (county) · PEP vintage 2025Net people moving in or out of the county, per 1,000 residents. Shown for context, not scored.
Building permits28.7/1kBottom quartile18th percentileCensus BPS (county) · BPS 2025New-construction permits per 1,000 homes. More means more supply coming. Shown for context, not scored.
Rent burden30%Above median52nd percentileCensus ACS B25071 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024Median rent as a share of income. Higher means less headroom for increases. Shown for context, not scored.
Median year built1986Above median69th percentileCensus ACS B25035 · ACS 5-yr 2020-2024Age of the housing stock. Older stock carries more capex. Shown for context, not scored.
Max drawdown34%Below median25th percentileZillow ZHVI · 2026-08-31Worst peak-to-trough home-value decline on record. Shown for context, not scored.
Violent crime24 /100kBelow median41st percentile · StabilityFBI CDE · 2023Reported violent-crime rate, municipal police department. Scored in the Stability category; property crime is scored too but shown here as the headline safety number. City-level data cannot resolve within-neighborhood risk.

Where to go next from Boise City

Every link below is this market's own data taken one step further: its neighbours in the ranking, the same numbers side by side, or the same numbers in a calculator you can change.

Nearby in the Idaho rankings, and national look-alikes

  • Hailey, IDGrade B · score 58/100 · yield 3.8% · $911,502 · #869 nationalZillow ZHVI $296k (2009) to $912k (2026), +208%
  • Star, IDGrade B · score 57/100 · yield 5.0% · $579,749 · #1,020 nationalZillow ZHVI $192k (2001) to $580k (2026), +202%
  • Hayden, IDGrade B · score 55/100 · yield 4.2% · $646,915 · #1,310 nationalZillow ZHVI $250k (2007) to $647k (2026), +159%
  • Payette, IDGrade B · score 54/100 · yield 4.5% · $372,879 · #1,409 nationalZillow ZHVI $115k (2007) to $373k (2026), +223%
  • Bettendorf, IAGrade B · score 55/100 · yield 5.1% · $339,608 · #1,223 nationalZillow ZHVI $169k (2004) to $340k (2026), +101%
  • Kettering, OHGrade B · score 55/100 · yield 6.7% · $247,139 · #1,221 nationalZillow ZHVI $88k (2000) to $247k (2026), +181%
  • Arlington, TNGrade B · score 55/100 · yield 7.1% · $407,320 · #1,224 nationalZillow ZHVI $195k (2000) to $407k (2026), +109%

All Idaho cities →

Compare Boise City head to head

Underwrite a Boise City deal

  • Cap rateOpens on Boise City's own entry price and rent. Change either one.
  • Cash flow & DSCRMonthly cash flow and DSCR, prefilled with this market's numbers.
  • Mortgage paymentP&I on Boise City's entry price at the assumptions shown above.
  • All marketsCompare Boise City against 4,812 ranked cities.
  • Idaho ZIP CodesEvery Idaho ZIP Code area (Census ZCTAs), scored separately from the city rankings.
  • Ranked listsYield, affordability, growth, stability, price band, or whether rent covers the mortgage.
  • Where cash flow concentratesThe research behind why some states pair yield with growth and most don't.

For learning, not advice. A market screen from public data - not a forecast, not underwriting, not a recommendation to buy anywhere.